Education Christanity and the State

a review by Jacob Tonak

What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. People often think it is the Presidents, Czars, Emperors, and Caesars whom rule the world, but these men are mere slaves to what they believe. It is the educators whom rule the world, perhaps not in their lifetime, but their influence in molding the minds of men can have a crescendo effect centuries later. In his book, Education, Christianity, and the State, J. Gresham Machen speaks out against the Christian intellectual decline, and the formation of state education in a compilation of speeches and essays given before professors, and joint congressional committees. The church and Christian faith have been under intellectual attack since our Lord was taken off the cross. However, the past few centuries have been unique, the attacks often come from men whom profess to be Christian. The influence of great theologians- Luther, Hodge, Calvin, Owens, Edwards, and Augustine has been diminished from a consuming fire to a flickering light. “Calvinism” is being relegated to the status of a four-letter word; be mindful whom you say it around. The church has come under the tutelage of men such as Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish theologian who stated, “It was intelligence and nothing else that had to be opposed. Presumably that is why I, who had the job, was armed with an immense intelligence.” Systems of truth, logical analysis, and having the mind of Christ, have been replaced by exhortations to do and say the right thing, all the while smiling. Some even say we can preach the gospel by not speaking a word; mere actions are enough to propagate the gospel. Faith is now solely an experience, and one certainly is not to think it through, for it may then lose its charm. We are to have child-like faith, not one of full dependence, but one of ignorance. The church has been infected by the very thing it is to fight, ignorance. The need for Christian scholarship has never been greater, for we becoming unprepared to defend our faith, and disprove the common cultural worldviews, as our society grows in its decadence and anti-Christian behavior. As this battle intensifies, we must not withdraw from the culture, like the Essenes, but engage it on every level. Instead of destroying the arts or sciences or being indifferent to them, may we endeavor in them with the passion of a humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our Lord. We must do this because our modern world is dominated by ideas which disregard the gospel and a Christian worldview. For the church to retain her influence these ideas must be refuted, or brought into subjection under Christ.

Unfortunately, the church is perishing through the lack of thinking, not the excess of it. Unable to successfully engage society in the realms of philosophy, economics, and the proper role of government, the church is moving solely into the realms of which there is no controversy. No longer is the church a storehouse of truth, rather it is a fountain of socialism, for there are no enemies or controversy in feeding and housing the poor. Our anti-intellectual movement in the church, and therefore our growing irrelevance and inability to engage, disciple, and change culture may be ignored by the church, but not perpetually. For such an outcome would be grievous.

But whom are these intellectuals to be? What schools and seminaries shall they attend, and what does state education have to do with Christianity? As stated earlier men are mere slaves to what they think and believe, therefore what we believe is of the utmost importance. The opposition of federally controlled education has roots going to the depth of personal liberty. Plato’s Republic was undergirded with the belief that children belonged to the state, thus the education given them is not for the benefit not of the child, but the state. Free public education was one of Karl Marx’s pillars, and was followed very well be Hitler, Stalin, and Mao knew that indoctrination brought by a monopolistic system of education is far more efficient in crushing personal liberty than the crude weapons of fire and sword. Our personal liberty is result of us being created in the image of God, and if liberty is not maintained with regard to education, there is no use trying to maintain it in any other sphere. If you give the bureaucrats the children, you might just as well give them everything else.

But still one asks, “What makes Christianity so unique that it necessitates its own schools?” Christianity is a system of truth, therefore it is impossible to meld it with anything which discredits it. Moreover, the Christian life we desire to see in our lives and others cannot be brought forth or lived from a basis of anti-Christian thought. Finally it cannot be forgotten the most important Christian educational system is not the pulpit or the school, as important as these institutions are, it is the Christian family. We alone are responsible before God for the education of our families. May we as members of Emmanuel Baptist Church train our families to be earnest contenders of the faith in every sphere of society, standing firm in the faith of God saying, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me. Amen.”